


Sálvisa

by Punny_Puck



Series: Daemon 'Verse [1]
Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Angst, Character Study, Daemons, F/M, Loki-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-02
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-13 16:04:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/826154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Punny_Puck/pseuds/Punny_Puck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki had her all his life.  A constant presence at his side, a voice to talk to, even when the rest of Asgard doesn’t listen.  He has no word for what she is, or why no one else seems to have one.  </p>
<p>Alternate Universe where Frost Giants have daemons and Aesir do not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sálvisa

Loki had her all his life.  A constant presence at his side, a voice to talk to, even when the rest of Asgard doesn’t listen.  He has no word for what she is, or why no one else seems to have one. 

“What is Sálvisa?” he asks his mother.  He knows she is not a pet, as Thor says, or a magical construct as his teachers believe, or even a guardian Valkyrie as his nurse as told him. 

She sighs and pulls him into her lap.  “She is your spirit animal, my love.  The guide of your heart.  Much like your father’s ravens.”

He nods, believing her, and lets her tuck the two of them into bed to sleep.

 

Later he will think this cannot be true.  Because Muninn and Huginn can leave Odin for other worlds and it never hurts him at all.  And Loki cannot leave Sálvisa in his bedroom and go to the dinner table without nearly crying. 

Muninn and Huginn also touch other people.  They will perch on Thor or Frigga’s shoulders or land on Tyr’s fist to whisper the messages they carry.  Loki cannot stand when anyone touches Sálvisa.  It hurts like a brand in his chest. And not just that.  It feels _wrong._ It feels like a molestation of his soul. 

She hates it too.  Thor will touch her ears when she is a wolf or brush his knuckles across her scales when she is a snake, and every time she will wince and retreat to a small, fragile form and curl up under his clothes to be away from their brother. 

 

Sigyn likes Sálvisa, and Sálvisa likes her.  Sigyn doesn’t touch her in any form, though Loki knows she wants to.  Sometimes Sálvisa will change into a beautiful big cat with lush, gold-colored with black bloom-like markings fur just to tempt Sigyn, despite the glares Loki shoots her.  Sigyn just smiles at the two of them and touches Loki instead. 

 

At Sigyn’s pyre, Sálvisa takes the big cat form again, but in a sooty black that matches the smoke in the air.  [She never changes again](http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/Black_leopard.JPG/220px-Black_leopard.JPG&imgrefurl=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_panther&h=165&w=220&sz=18&tbnid=GI2jLFGKa9yA9M:&tbnh=98&tbnw=131&zoom=1&usg=__3HwtqG19bCN5XsLTj114IkrYPcM=&docid=ZJe8pjUGe1yXaM&sa=X&ei=xCiqUe7AIY6g4AOc4oGQBw&ved=0CDgQ9QEwAg&dur=1412%20). 

 

Sálvisa doesn’t approve of the joke.  _Ruining Thor’s big day will only earn you his wrath as a reward,_ she murmurs as they walk through the palace.  Since she has settled, people have stopped touching her, intimidated by her flashing green and gold eyes and the sharp points of her teeth and claws.  Loki refuses to show his relief. 

“It will show father,” he says, barely believing it himself.  He has long since given up pretending his pranks are anything near in jest. 

Sálvisa only sighs and follows. 

 

They go through with the trick and go through with Jotunheim and come back to Asgard changed. 

 

He should have known.  That is what angers him the most.  He should have known and he is so incredibly _stupid_ for never guessing.  The Jotun were always rumored to have animal souls.  Heathenish, savage things that walked beside their Jotun and fought between themselves.  It was one of many things that separated them from civilization. 

When the Jotun grabs his arm and instead of recoiling in pain, the blue skin of his nature spreads like spilt mercury around the beast’s fingers, Loki is frozen in shock.  It all hits him with the force of a thousand winters.  He is not Aesir.  He has never been Aesir.  That is why he has always been marginalized in favor of his brother.  That is why he has never received the love of the people, of the nobles, of his _parents._ That is why only Sigyn, kind, perfect Sigyn, could find it in her heart to love him. 

It is so fitting and obvious and so incredibly _hateful_ that he wants to claw his skin off. 

 

But of course, there may be a mistake.  It is this that Sálvisa whispers to him, and he holds onto until they come ho—back to Asgard.  It must be a mistake.  A tactic, a ruse, a ploy.  Something.  Anything but the truth. 

 

But he cannot accept it, because he cannot accept anything, he picks at it like a scab as Sálvisa says, and goes down to the weapons vault and tests it.  He picks up the Casket and becomes his worst nightmare and shouts his father into the Odinsleep.

And he flees to his mother and doesn’t notice that Sálvisa has remained the same beautiful Sálvisa when his image was warped and discolored by his heritage. 

 

He cannot look at Sálvisa.  He cannot see the proof of his own disgusting nature.  When the guards give him Gungir, he thinks for a moment about severing the bond can still feel between them.  The enchanted steel could cut it.  Tear them one from another and he’d never have to think his own otherness again.  

The thought only lasts a second and Sálvisa winces as he vomits violently.  He wipes his mouth and throws his arms around her.

“I won’t, I won’t,” he chants into her fur. 

She licks his cheek and digs her claws into his chest and says, “I know.  You’re mine.”

 

He cannot sever her, so he must prove his allegiance some other way.  He sits on the cold throne, with Sálvisa pacing on the first step and thinks.  He is no closer to an answer when the Warriors Three come to kneel and ask for Thor to come home, he knows he cannot allow it.  He sees the moment-long hesitation before they kneel.  He sees the disgust in their eyes as they ask him to bring back Thor to be king. 

The anger is a hot new emotion over the despair.  He clings onto it because half of his mind—the half that is Sálvisa—is quaking with fear because they don’t know his true nature and if this is their reaction to Aesir-Loki on the throne, surely they would kill him if they knew the truth, and if Odin can cast out his true son, surely he could kill his false one. 

But he cannot think of that, because he is angry.  He is angry that they hate him and have always hated him and as soon as he has power they come crawling to him, begging for Thor.  And he is angry because they think him so stupid that he will bring their golden boy—his tormenter—back so they can cast Loki into the dirt again. 

He sends them away and goes to Midgard.

 

It almost tugs at his heart to see the man he was raised beside brought so low. A tiny part of him—that is all him and not at all Sálvisa—whispers that Loki himself has been brought even lower and there is nothing he can do about it.  And all Thor need do is lift a damned hammer and Odin will return everything to him. 

So Loki rips out his brother’s heart with savage lies.  Sálvisa won’t let him touch her afterwards.

 

From there he goes to Jotunheim.  Laufey’s daemon is a small grey cat common to Realm of Frost.  She watches from Laufey’s shoulder while they talk.  The fur along Sálvisa’s spine is on end and all through the meeting Loki can feel a vibrating hum that is her growling inaudibly at the other daemon. 

“You are one of us,” Laufey says with his eyes on Sálvisa.  “You and your daemon.”

“No,” Loki says, and he cannot hide the brokenness behind arrogance.  “Never one of you.”

 

He kills Laufey in front of his mother.  He hadn’t planned that.  He did not wish to hurt Frigga.  The nastiest depths of him whisper that he is soft to believe that she could ever love him, but he never wished her to come even close to harm.  He was always so meticulous, but Sálvisa wasn’t talking to him and everything was falling apart. 

 

Laufey is dead, but he knows it isn’t enough.  It isn’t enough for his birth-father to be dead because there is a whole planet of the beasts that can attest to his heritage.  Any one of them could tear everything he has ever loved away from him.  He can’t allow it to happen.  So he sends the Destroyer to stall Thor—yes, stall, because Thor could never be beaten by something so simple as the Destroyer, everyone knows that—and freezes Heimdall and sets the Bifrost on Jotunheim. 

 

But then Thor is there to ruin things again, and if he cannot have his way he can at least _fight_ and _move_ and perhaps it will relieve this feeling of frozen vulnerability he has had since he left Jotunheim. 

And then the Bifrost is broken and he is hanging over the edge and he looks up at the man he wanted so badly to be his father and making one last plea. 

“No, Loki.”

And he is falling, and Sálvisa is with him and he feels better because at least it is the end.  The monster has been vanquished and all the children can say goodnight and go to sleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> Sálvisa is a melanistic leopard or black panther. Her name comes from the old Norse words “sál” meaning soul and “visa” meaning guide.
> 
> Thanks go to Ross G. Arthur's online English-Old Norse Dictionary which is where I got all my translations.


End file.
